LATIN AMERICA
Nativity Fairs in Latin America
The nativity scene came with the missionaries and was soon made local: llamas instead of camels, ponchos instead of robes. The big event is Santurantikuy, in Cusco, on December 24: more than twelve hundred artisans on the main square.
Santurantikuy, Cusco, December 24
The name is Quechua (the Andean language of the Inca) and means “the sale of saints.” The fair fills Cusco’s Plaza de Armas (the Inca Hawkaypata) and spills into the squares nearby. The main day is always December 24; for about ten years now it has run three days, from the 22nd to the 24th.
In 2025, more than 1,200 artisans from communities across the Andes set up right on the ground from dawn until night. Free admission. It was declared part of Peru’s national cultural heritage in 2009, and it’s considered one of the largest folk art fairs in South America.
It’s also the only major nativity fair of the year held in summer, under the Andean sun, at about 11,150 feet (3,400 m). Take the altitude seriously if you’re flying in from sea level: give yourself two days to adjust before spending a whole day on your feet in the square.
What you’ll find there looks nothing like a Provençal santon: figures in ceramic, painted plaster and wood, and above all the Niño Manuelito, the Andean Baby Jesus, often with real hair and clothes, which families dress in a new outfit every year.
What the nativity became there
The word changes by country: nacimiento in Peru, Mexico and Central America, pesebre in Colombia and Venezuela. And local artisans made the nativity their own.
The Wise Men arrive on llamas or alpacas instead of camels. The shepherds wear ponchos and the chullo (the Andean knit cap). The landscape is the Andes or the Mexican desert, with the animals to match. These local touches aren’t a recent folk twist: they go back to colonial times, when Indigenous workshops made religious images for churches and patrons. See the nativity in Latin America.
Mexico: markets, not fairs
Mexico makes a huge number of nativity figures, but most are sold in permanent markets that get busier in December, not at fairs with set dates.
The best known is the nativity market (tianguis) in the annex of the Mercado de Sonora in Mexico City, on Avenida Fray Servando Teresa de Mier: a year-round market where a whole aisle fills with nativity figures as Christmas gets closer, from pieces that cost a few pesos to complete sets.
Two craft towns are worth a detour if you’re traveling: Tlaquepaque, in Jalisco, and Metepec, in the State of Mexico, known for its terra-cotta work. The workshops are open all year, so again, these are places rather than dates. Closer to home, Mexican nativity figures often show up in December at markets across the Southwest, from San Antonio to Olvera Street in Los Angeles, where Las Posadas processions are held every Christmas season.
Elsewhere in Latin America (Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Guatemala), what we found were exhibitions or contests of nativity scenes built by schools and parishes, rather than places to buy figures. So we haven’t listed anything on the calendar for those countries.
No date is guaranteed. This information comes from sources abroad that we can’t always double-check, and many cities only publish their schedule in the fall. Before you book a trip, check with the organizer.
Page current as of September 13, 2026.